- A college graduate goes to work as a nanny for a rich New York family. Ensconced in their home, she has to juggle their dysfunction, a new romance, and the spoiled brat in her charge.
- After graduating from Montclair State, New Jersey Girl Annie can't make up her mind about what to do with her life. After saving a little boy from being run over in the park, she is quickly employed as a nanny for a rich Upper East Side couple. Mr X is occupied with his business, Mrs X loves shopping, and neither really likes to spend time with their little boy Grayer. Annie quickly learns that she has more than her hands full taking care of him. Her busy schedule doesn't give her much spare time. Mrs X fired her last nanny because she was dating and that gives Annie problems when Harvard Hottie who lives in the same building asks her out on a date.—Mattias Thuresson
- Annie gets a crash course in child care when she is hired as a nanny for Grayer, the son of a Manhattan socialite known by "Mrs. X." She deals with the struggle of Grayer's fighting parents, her loving mother's many questions, and a romance with a neighboring Harvard Hottie.
- Newly graduated with a degree in Finance with a minor in Anthropology, 21-year-old New Jerseyan Annie Braddock realizes at the most inopportune of times that she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. Literally stumbling onto it, she learns that there is high demand by the wealthy Upper East Side set for nannies, something she figures she can do in the short term until she decides what to do in the long term. In telling her story, she frames it in the realm of an urban anthropology research project in having pseudonyms for some of the key players. In being able to choose her employers despite not having any experience as a nanny or with children, she goes into the employ of the X's as nanny to their preschool-aged son, Grayer, the stumbler. Annie quickly learns that the X's are not as they initially presented themselves. Mrs. X is not gracious, but rather demanding, controlling and prone to upper-class trends which are apt to change as new upper-class fads emerge, with their former nanny not quitting as Annie was led to believe, but fired by Mrs. X for going on a date. And Grayer is not the sweet child he initially came across as, but, a product of the environment in which he has been raised, is precocious in a bad way. And when she eventually meets him, Annie sees that Mr. X is even less a presence in Grayer's life than Mrs. X, and in his narcissism is a philanderer who treats Mrs. X poorly. As Annie is eventually able to get through to Grayer which makes quitting no longer an option despite the poor working conditions, she has to deal with two additional people, the first her mother who she has not told about the job in her mother's belief and dreams that she is working on Wall Street, and the second a guy she names Harvard Hottie (because of his preppy good looks and he wearing a Harvard sweatshirt in their first encounter), who lives on the 12th floor of the X's building and with whom she is averse to starting a relationship because of the fate of the previous nanny and despite their mutual attraction. The questions become if this experiment/experience will allow her to get a clearer view of what she wants to do with her life, and how the experiment will end as there is, by its very nature, a finite time frame to this job.—Huggo
- Annie Braddock graduates from college as an anthropology major and freezes during the interview for an internship at a big corporation. To find herself, she takes a job as a nanny in Manhattan's toney Upper East Side, tells her mother she got the internship, and moves in with the X family - a cheating husband, a control-freak wife, and Grayer, a lad of five. Mrs. X works the nanny day and night while neglecting her son. As the summer wears on, Annie is chatted up by a young man in the building, dubbed Harvard Hottie. She puts her anthropology skills to use to save her sanity, but how long can she suffer? Will she speak up, and will she discover who she is?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
- Twenty-one-year-old Annie Braddock has just graduated from Montclair State University. She has no idea what or who she wants to be. One day, while sitting in the park, Annie sees a young boy (Nicholas Art) about to be hit by a vehicle. Annie saves him and meets the boy's mother, who we meet as Mrs. X (Laura Linney). When she introduces herself as "Annie", Mrs. X mistakes her words for "Nanny" and hires her to look after Grayer, the boy she saved. Annie lies to her mother Judy (Donna Murphy) about taking a job at a bank and, in reality, moves into the Xs' apartment to be the nanny for Grayer.
Life with the incredibly privileged Xs is not what she thought it would be, and her life is complicated further when she falls for "Harvard Hottie" (Chris Evans), who lives in the building. Interspersed with her life as the Xs' nanny are her interactions with "Harvard Hottie" as well as her longtime friend Lynette. "Harvard Hottie" reveals to Annie that he can relate to her charge Grayer, as when he lost his mother age four his absentee father left him with a string of nannies until he reached the age he could be shipped off to boarding school.
Annie continues to keep her mother in the dark about her real job, giving her regular but false progress reports. Further complications arise when Judy decides to visit her, forcing Annie to pretend Lynette (Alicia Keys) and her roommate Calvin (Nate Corddry) are a couple and that their apartment is Annie's apartment. Judy ultimately finds out the truth when Grayer becomes severely ill, and Annie desperately calls her for help.
After a rough start, Annie eventually bonds with Grayer, whom she addresses by his preferred code name, "Grover", and discovers that he is actually a sweet and loving child who is neglected by both his parents, which explains his uncontrollable behavior. Parallel to this, Annie begins to also notice that Grayer is not the only one being neglected: Mrs. X is as well, with Mr. X (Paul Giamatti) constantly being cruel to her and committing subtly obvious adultery. Mrs. X makes numerous attempts to make her husband love her, including lying to him about being pregnant with their second child. Annie soon realizes that Mrs. X's own cruel treatment of her is due to Mrs. X's growing frustrations from her dysfunctional marriage.
Things take a turn for the worse during a family trip with the X's to Nantucket. She overhears Mrs. X telling a friend during a party that she has installed a "nanny cam" at their home in the city and plans to fire Annie after viewing footage showing Annie lovingly tending to Grayer (with Mrs. X grossly exaggerating her findings from the "nanny cam"). The next morning, Mr. X sexually assaults Annie just as Mrs. X enters the kitchen. She unreasonably fires Annie and sends her back to the city with her final payment of just $40.
Flying into a rage, Annie finds the "nanny cam" in the X's house and records her feelings toward the Xs. Mrs. X brings the tape to the school meeting for the Upper East Side mothers. Thinking that the tape will show Annie feeding Grayer peanut butter and jelly straight from a jar, she requests the coordinator to play it for everyone to see. All other parents in the room hear as Annie reveals the real relationship between the Xs, in the process making Mrs. X come to terms with her own reality and false happiness.
Annie reconciles with her mother and continues to date "Harvard Hottie", whose real name is revealed to be Hayden. She is temporarily living with Lynette and Calvin, and pursuing her growing interest in anthropology, much of which she learned through her time as the Xs' nanny.
A few months later, Hayden hands Annie a letter from Mrs. X. Written in the letter is an apology and news about how Mrs. X left her husband, and is raising Grayer alone and making stronger attempts to bond with him (and successfully doing so), and Grayer's overall improvement.
She expresses her gratitude to Annie for waking her up and changing her life. Also in the letter, Mrs. X addresses Annie for the first time by her real name (instead of Nanny), and signs the letter with her own first name, Alexandra (instead of Mrs. X).
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